33

We drive in the slow lane, like we do everything else. As we head off the highway and into Harrisville, Agatha pulls Bertha over to the side of the road. Two wicker chairs sit near a mailbox with a FREE sign hooked to their backs.

“Well, I can see those out by the barn, can’t you?”

No, I can’t, I think as she stops. They are the same tomato green as the truck and are covered with mud. “They don’t even stand up right.”

Agatha doesn’t listen. She climbs onto the back of the truck and pushes the oatmeal out of the way. “Are you going to help me or not?”

As we get the second chair onto the truck, a pickup rumbles to a stop. “Agatha!” A man jumps out and hurries toward us. My aunt plants her feet into the gravel.

“You ladies need a hand?”

“You stop just to give me help, Moss?” Agatha says.

The man laughs. “Sure.”

“Well, the job’s already done. Two chairs for my garden.”

“I did want to talk to you about that woodlot, Agatha. You gonna sell it to me this year?”

She snorts. “I knew there was more. I got the same answer I gave you last year, Moss. No.”

“You can make a good pocket of cash off it—I keep telling you that, Agatha.”

“And I keep telling you, I’m not lettin’ no one buy my land.”

He takes off his cap and wipes his forehead with his arm. “Your house, Agatha, it could surely use a little money put into it. Be a shame to let an old place like that go.”

“My business, not yours,” she says.

He winks at me. “I’m Moss, Moss Jackson.” He reaches his hand out to shake mine. “I own the land right up to Agatha’s. Isn’t that right, Agatha?” He looks back at me. “And you’re?”

Think about anything else, I tell myself as I reach out my hand. I turn to Agatha, hoping she’ll tell him who I am. Instead, she looks back at me. I begin turning myself to stone.

Think about all the fish heads and old bologna sandwiches and half-eaten Pop-Tarts that rot inside all the garbage bags at the dump, I tell myself. Think about tuna in a lunch box, six days old.

“Ummm,” I say finally. I breathe deeply through my nose. I loop my thumbs in my belt loops and pull until they are as red as cherries. “C-c-c-c ...”

A grin moves across his face. He chuckles. “Cat got your tongue?” I turn miserably to Agatha. She is not chuckling. She is looking straight at me.

Why doesn’t she do anything? She could just say my name, make this all go away, but she stands there, still as pond water.

I am a stone, sinking. “C-c-c-c-c ...”

He looks down, away. He turns to Agatha. “You change your mind on that woodlot, you give me a call now, you hear?” He hurries to his truck and climbs in, starts it, and drives off.

Agatha looks at me a long time. She puts her arm on my shoulders and then we walk to the truck and ride home in silence. I want to slip into the quiet and never talk again.